1. Let's say there's a pill that can make you feel happy all the time. There are no consequences. And let's say your still able to think rationally (for example, in the face of impeding death you are still able to react. Just don't get bogged down in why it's bad to be happy all the time here).

Is there anything wrong with taking this pill? If so, what and why?

2. Chemical enhancement in the sporting world... again, if there were no negative consequences, is there anything wrong with drug usage?

Try it. If it all goes down the drain, yes, there was something wrong with it.

Edit: what I'm trying to say is that you can't dissociate a choice from its consequences. If all the pill does is make people happier, or faster, sure, knock yourself out. But if, say, you must invade, oppress, and wreck several countries just to keep yourself supplied with your wonder drug, there's something wrong.

1. Let's say there's a pill that can make you feel happy all the time. There are no consequences. And let's say your still able to think rationally (for example, in the face of impeding death you are still able to react. Just don't get bogged down in why it's bad to be happy all the time here).

Is there anything wrong with taking this pill? If so, what and why?

No, but why would you want to take it? What would be the point of living that way?

First, let me say that the reason I left my answer unqualified before is that I intentionally wanted to avoid drawing some sort of line in the sand. I do believe that there are cases where medication is appropriate, and that there are cases where it is inappropriate. I am not qualified to determine where the line is for somebody else. No doctor, let alone a bureaucrat, lobbyist, drug company exec, or politician, is qualified to tell me where the line is for me. (That's not to say that I won't listen to advice as concerns my health. Just that the final decision is irrevocably mine)

Now, for the example. I'm pretty certain that, if screened, I would test positive for ADD (ADHD? I'm unclear on the difference). Why don't I get screened? Because I would change nothing as a result. Supposing I did get diagnosed, my options would be to do nothing, or to start taking a personality-altering medication. I like my personality, and don't want it altered, so I wouldn't take medication. For me, anything that alters my personality is over the limit. It frightens me greatly that, were I born 25 years later, this choice I make freely now may have been illegal for my parents to make for me, because some politician decided to try to set the limit for me.

*ponders* The only drugs that I am on that might alter my mood are zoloft and ativan. However much I don't like taking pills, they increase my stability and keep me from going postal on the floor when people get stupid.

If you don't need the drug, don't take it. End of story. Especially for non-medically needed problems. I still don't see why athletes need to depend upon steroids. Well, I can see why...I just don't agree.

One of the big problems with drugs like Aderal, Prozac, etc. is that they don't actually cure anything. When you go off the drug you've still got all your problems. Being on the drugs just makes them harder to deal with in the long run. Of course you can always stay on them for your whole life. Not an option I like, but to each his own.

Psychologists and Psychiatrists have pointed out plenty of problems. I'd like to see some solutions.

*lays out a row of glasses of water*
*sets a pill out in front of each of the glasses*
*takes a mortar and pestle*
*grinds each pill up in series, dumps it into its respective water glass, and stirs until the powders are completely dissociated*

There you go...solutions.

Or at least as close as America and its fixation on "quick fixes" and medical system dominated by drug companies will get you.

Personally, I feel the 'quick fixes' are actually making the problem worse. It's now trendy to be on something, and that's just wrong. It's trendy to "depressed" so you can take some pills. I doubt half the people on anti-depressants are actually depressed to the point where they need the pills to go on.

My wife has had some pretty serious bouts of depression during her life, both because of genetic factors and because of lifestyle factors. She's never gone to get pills to 'fix it,' because she knows that if she doesn't shake it off herself, she's not going to be able to.

It's obvious that this sort of thing makes the problem worse.

Consider this: In the past 20 years, america has gotten way, way fatter. Also in the past 20 years, we've seen an explosion of 'quick fix' diets and pills to fix the problem and let you lose a ton of weight very, very fast. If those quick fixes worked, they'd work themselves out of business, and america wouldn't be fat anymore. But america is getting fatter, not skinnier, so obviously the quickfix diets/medicines don't work, and in fact, may be contributing to the weight gain, since some of the people might actually work at getting skinny if there wasn't a pill to do it for them.

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Once depression becomes as easy and infallable to diagnose as, say, a broken arm, then I will agree with doctors and whatnot being able to diagnose depression and prescribe pills to supress it without getting second and possibly third opinions. But since it's really just their opinion, then I don't think that a single doctor or psychiatrist should be able to do it; at least, not to the extent that they can now.

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If you use pain medicine when you are in pain, the risk of addiction (even with things like morphine) are virtually zero.

If you use pain medicine when you are not in pain, the risk of addiction is very high.

The reason for this is because when you're in pain, you use the medicine to feel normal, and when you're not in pain, you body doesn't want the medicine anymore, because you already feel normal. But if you're not in pain and take the medicine, your body feels better, and when the medicine is gone, you have to take more to feel normal, thus addiction.

It's the same thing with anti-depressants. If you take it while you are depressed, you won't want/need them when you arn't depressed. If you take them when you're not depressed, you'll get addicted.

1. Let's say there's a pill that can make you feel happy all the time. There are no consequences. And let's say your still able to think rationally (for example, in the face of impeding death you are still able to react. Just don't get bogged down in why it's bad to be happy all the time here).

Is there anything wrong with taking this pill? If so, what and why?

Nothing wrong at all. If we make the assumption that there is no afterlife or "higher meaning" (i.e. an atheist's view) it's all just chemicals in the brain anyway, so the choice is pretty simple: constant happiness vs occasional happiness. And hey, any doubts you might have are doubts you won't have after taking the pills...

_________________Living in a state free from the burdens of privacy and democracy since 2008-06-18.